


The Story Remains The Same

by t_fic (topaz), topaz, topaz119 (topaz)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Community: spn_flashfic, Fairy Tales, Flash Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-16
Updated: 2007-10-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 15:19:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/t_fic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz119
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At first, it doesn't look like their kind of thing at all, just a pretty, dark-haired woman on the local news, pleading to have her baby returned to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Story Remains The Same

**Author's Note:**

> General spoilers through the end of S2; AU after that now. Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/spnflashfic/profile)[**spnflashfic**](http://community.livejournal.com/spnflashfic/)'s _fairy tale_ challenge and originally posted [there](http://community.livejournal.com/spnflashfic/27419.html).

At first, it doesn't look like their kind of thing at all, just a pretty, dark-haired woman on the local news, pleading to have her baby returned to her. Dean hates shit like that, what people do to each other, but it's better left to the cops and while he and Sam are free and clear of the crossroads demon--and almost recovered from everything that took, thank Christ--they still aren't on the best of terms with the FBI, so steering clear is definitely the best course.

Key West is pretty much everything Dean's ever heard it to be, and George Lowell's credit has been good enough for an extended stay in a relatively non-shitty motel. Dean hasn't had much practice with the whole vacation concept, but Sam'd been down close to thirty pounds by the time he'd fought himself free of that bitch's claws--physical and mental--and Dean hadn't been any better. Add that to being fucking sick of winter and he'd kept on driving south until they hit the end of the road and checked into the first place that had a vacancy.

Other than the touristy crap, there's not much to do. That's fine; they're both worn down in ways Dean would rather not think about--but if Sam ever tells anyone that Dean's been asleep before midnight every night, itching powder in his jock is gonna look like a little love note.

The local channels are all over the kidnapping; any time Dean flips around the channels, there's at least one reporter standing in front of the gated compound where the family lives, with nothing new to report. Even the Miami stations are in on it, and when the feds formally name the mom as a suspect the whole thing turns into a feeding frenzy, with CNN and Fox and the networks picking up the feeds and sending in crews.

Still, Dean isn't paying it much attention until he catches some wonky talking head going on and on about the "delusional" statements the mom's apparently given, all too happy to share his professional opinion about what would make a young mother conspire with kidnappers and then try to blame everything on a mysterious dwarf-like man, who was probably nothing more than a hallucination.

"Ah, hell, Sam," Dean says, sitting up straight in his bed and reaching for the remote. "I hate it when they start talking delusions and hallucinations."

"On it," Sam answers, fingers flying on the keyboard. A few minutes later he's got a half-dozen windows open that Dean can read over his shoulder. Pretty young wife, stinking rich older husband with a carefully constructed set of businesses and a lifestyle straight out of every _Miami Vice_ rerun Dean ever saw growing up.

"Keep digging," he says, before Sam can tell him how much this looks like what the cops must really want to say it is--war between drug cartels with the kid being collateral damage. Not that he thinks Sam believes that, but he's not really in the mood for the whole devil's advocate routine right now.

Sam just grunts in reply and keeps working the wifi mojo. Dean considers his options and decides a little face-to-face with the rumor mill might not be a bad idea. Editors have this bad habit of not printing shit that doesn't fit with their worldview; it never hurts to hear the raw story, before it gets prettied up for public consumption.

"Be careful, man," Sam says, glancing up as Dean picks up his phone and a room key. "Whatever's supernatural about this is probably the least of our worries."

"Relax, Sammy," Dean says. "I can be subtle when I want to." He closes the door on Sam's disbelieving snort, but whatever, he's not an idiot. Low-key is definitely the way to go.

*

Dean actually doesn't expect to learn much, but it's his lucky night. He's on the phone to Sam in less than an hour and Sam's got the car outside the bar ten minutes later.

"What's up?" Sam asks, making a face as Dean motions for him to slide over and let Dean drive.

"You first," Dean says, pulling back out onto the street and following the directions he'd scribbled down on the back of a napkin. "What'd you find out?"

"Steven Eltanin is a 'respected, self-made millionaire' and 'noted philanthropist.'" Sam's making air quotes even as he's flipping through his notebook.

"Self-made how?"

"Nobody ever quite says exactly," Sam says.

"Convenient."

"Careful, man," Sam says, grinning. "You'll make me think you're getting cynical in your old age."

Dean snorts. "And the wife? Let me guess… Model? 'Actress?'" he asks, throwing in an air quote or two of his own.

"Try chemical engineer," Sam says and Dean takes his eyes off the road long enough to make sure Sam isn't just fucking with him. "Christiane Morgan. I found a bunch of articles about her: local girl makes good, a full ride to Rensselaer. Summa cum laude, Tau Beta Pi, Omega Chi Epsilon--"

"This is good stuff, I'm assuming," Dean says, reining him in before he goes off in full Sam-nerd mode.

"Yeah," Sam answers. "The best. Gets her undergrad a year early and goes right into a PhD program, but comes back before she finishes her dissertation and ends up married to the guy her father did odd jobs for, who's 20 years older than she is."

"And running drugs."

"Allegedly," Sam says, in what Dean thinks of as his lawyer voice.

"Whatever."

"They live here and in Miami and, I don't know, something about Aspen and Kauai and the Caymans. Three months ago, they had their first child, a boy, and two days ago, 911 gets a call to say the baby is missing."

"Okay," Dean says, pulling up next to a small, neat house. "Good to know the public version, because I hit pay dirt at the first bar I walked into and we're about to go talk to her brother."

Dean waits for the props, because, hey, it wasn't like the guy hadn't needed some delicate handling to tell Dean his story, but Sam just opens the car door. "Who are we?" he asks, keeping his voice low.

"PIs," Dean answers, flipping him a couple of business cards. "Down here for a little fishing, which he likes, because he doesn't quite trust his brother-in-law. Not that he said that, of course, because ol' Steven is like a force of nature around here. Not something you want to go pissing off."

"Got it," Sam says, straightening his shoulders, and he still could stand to gain another ten pounds but he looks so fucking much better than the guy Dean picked up off that dirt road, it almost doesn't matter.

The lights are out inside, but as soon as Dean knocks, the door opens and they're hustled inside.

"Look," says the brother, before Sam's barely even in the room. "I appreciate you coming out here and all, but--"

"Hey, man; it's okay." Dean starts running his mouth before the guy can admit he's getting cold feet. "This has got to be rough on you, too, your nephew and all. We get that; I mean, this is what we do, we get how tough this all can be."

It's all just the standard comforting BS that'll get him to chill and not realize how much Sam's gonna get him to spill before the night's over, and right on cue, Sam's introducing himself and handing over one of the cards and projecting just the right amount of _of course you can trust me, I'm just an earnest dweeb_ to slide in under Dean's _hell, yes, I'm packing, do you even have to ask?_.

Dean doesn't think the brother--Alex--is going to throw them out, but there's something odd going on, something not quite right, and he can tell Sam feels it, too. Dean lets the two of them ramble on, something about how the guy was a kid when his sister left for college and not much older when she got married and blah blah blah.

As much as Dean hates to think it, maybe they aren't going to get the easy ride on this one, because all of it sounds like Alex's got a serious case of cold feet. He's almost ready to chalk this one up as a bust and start easing them out the door, maybe see if they can find someone else to talk with, when there's a noise from the kitchen, small and immediately silenced, as though someone's trying to hide, and Dean can fucking _feel_ unseen eyes watching them.

Sam shifts around on the couch, leaning forward enough that he can clear his gun in a split second if he needs to, carefully not looking at Dean while he moves. Dean stretches his legs out so the knife in his boot is good to go if they need a Plan B. He's just about to give Sam the _we're getting the fuck out of here_ sign when a woman steps into the doorway and Alex's run-around story stutters to a halt and he stands up so quickly he almost stumbles.

"Christiane," he says, reaching for her. "You said you'd stay in the back."

"It doesn't matter, Alejandro," she says, coming forward into the light, her voice as dull and lifeless as her face, and it takes Dean long seconds to recognize the pretty trophy wife in the faded woman in jeans and sneakers in front of him. "We can't get him back, you have to believe me." She laughs, almost softly enough to hide the hysteria. "Not that I blame anyone for thinking I'm psychotic and wanting to know where I've hidden the body."

"Chris," Alex says, short and sharp and scared as hell--Dean can hear it as plain as day. "I don't know what to think, but I will _not_ believe you had anything to do with Marcus disappearing."

"You should," Christiane says, sitting down and burying her face in her hands. "It's all my fault, and he just _laughed_ when I told him he could have me instead…"

Sam's got that look on his face, the one that'd almost taken up permanent residence in the last month before he went up against the crossroads bitch, the one that suckers Dean low in the gut.

"Ma'am," Dean says, even though she can't be much older than he is. "My brother and I… we've taken care of a lot of things that've seemed unbelievable. It's pretty much all we've ever done."

"We'd like to help," Sam says and his expression's shifted to the one that people can't help but trust, even Dean, even when he knows better. "If you could tell us, maybe we can figure something out, and even if we can't, I swear we won't think you're crazy or psychotic."

The room's still for an endless few seconds. They've been here countless times before, and like always, Dean finds himself not willing to breathe, not wanting to break the spell while they wait for the woman on the couch to decide whether she can put words around whatever's happened to her.

"My family," she says, finally. "We didn't have much money when I was growing up, but I was smart and good in school. I had some teachers who encouraged me, helped me with the paperwork and I got into every school I applied to. My father, he was so proud. He didn't understand anything that I studied, but he was proud of me."

Dean's watching close, but Sam's focused on Christiane and Dean can't see anything in his face.

"Once I got there, I stayed in New York, because we didn't have the money for me to come home--scholarships don't pay for everything."

"No," Sam says, smiling at her. "They really, really don't."

"So, I TA'd and picked up as many research assistant jobs as I could and I overloaded so I could get done quicker and I was so close to finishing my own research when my mother got sick."

Alex sits back down and takes her hand. "Cancer," he says to Dean and Sam. "I was ten and Pop was…"

"Not really dealing with it," Christiane says.

"Drinking himself to death," Alex corrects, and Christiane gives a little half-nod. "Because God forbid something not be about him."

"I took a leave of absence and came home… I was sitting with her one night--she was so sick from the chemo and she'd finally fallen asleep and there was a knock on the door." Christiane stands up and walks to look out the window, so her back's to them and Dean knows that move, knows how it makes it easier to say stuff when you don't have to look at anyone.

"There were four men on the porch and they wanted me to come with them. They were very polite, and one of them said he would stay with my mother, but they weren't the kind of men you said no to."

She falls silent again, until Sam prompts her gently. "And then what happened?"

"They took me to their car and they apologized but they said they had to blindfold me, so I couldn't see where we were going." Dean doesn't guess Alex's heard any of this before, not from how hard he's hanging onto the arm of the couch. "When we got there, they took me into a building, an old warehouse, and when they took off the blindfold, Steven was there."

She turns back and focuses on Sam. "I knew him, of course, even though my father never spoke about… work. Everyone knew Steven, even then. He told me my father had been drinking and talking and telling everyone who would listen about his brilliant daughter and how she knew things, things that even people who'd been in the business all their lives didn't know."

"And he told me that things were getting out of hand, so he'd brought me to this place, so he could see if my father was right."

"_Christ_," Alex chokes out. "I swear to God, Christiane, if the old man wasn't dead already, I'd kill him for this."

Personally, Dean would have a few things to say about the husband, but he guesses the dad isn't coming off like a prince either.

Christiane crosses back over and takes Alex's hand. "I tried to explain that I was only a grad student, that I didn't know anything special. but Steven just said he would be back in the morning. Oh, and that the building was safe, he had security all around it. He left and I--I went a little crazy. I was terrified. They were with my mother and with you, Alex, and I didn't know where my father was and I _didn't know anything_." The hysteria from earlier is bubbling closer to the surface, mixed with a sort of fatalistic bitterness. "I spent all my life being the Smart One, the one who knew things, and when it counted, when it really counted I didn't know a goddamned thing that would help. Not about anything in that lab, not even in a general sense."

Sam's eyes flicker over to Dean and Jesus Christ, Dean's going to have to start smacking some sense into him, he can just tell.

"Everything I ever did," Christiane says, talking directly to Sam now. "Everything was ceramics. I was going to work on the shuttle, on the next generation space program. I was going to _get out_, get away from this place, take my mother and my brother and keep them safe. And, somehow, I blinked and I was standing in, in a _meth lab_, and I didn't know what to do."

Things are getting a little bit out of control, so Dean goes for the tension breaker. "I'm guessing this is where stuff gets really weird."

"Oh, God, yes," Christiane says, but she's not quite as hyped up anymore. "I turned around and there was this… well, I don't know what he was. He was small, and very very old, it seemed, and he asked me if I needed help."

"Not out of the goodness of his heart, am I right?" It's flip, but a little humor never hurts, that's Dean's motto, and it usually doesn't get him in too much trouble. Or at least, not so much that he can't get back out of it.

"No, he wanted something. Something precious, he said." Christiane half-shrugs. "The only thing I had was a locket I'd gotten for Quinceañera, really very cheap, but he took it and he… did what Steven had asked me to do, what my father had told everyone I could do."

"And…" Sam prompts.

"And when it happened the next night, I gave him my grandmother's watch," Christiane answers, matter-of-fact and calm, but it's less control and more like she's already dead, Dean thinks. "And the night after that, when I didn't have anything more to give him, he told me that he was patient. He'd wait until I had something precious to give him. He waited twelve years, exactly, and then he took... he took him right out of my lap."

She crumples down onto Alex, who's staring at her helplessly. Dean arches an eyebrow at Sam, who gives that half-shrug that says the chance of getting any more information is about even with getting caught in the backlash when everyone realizes how many secrets just got put out there for public consumption.

Dean nods and fishes a card out of his pocket.

"Ma'am," he says. "This is definitely the kind of thing we do." Christiane's head comes up and her face is so hopeful Dean feels like shit having to shut her down. "I don't know what this thing is, or what we can do about it, but it's definitely something that we can look into." He hands her the card. "We're gonna go check some stuff out; if you think of something more, or if anything else happens, you give us a call. Anything, no matter how unimportant you think it might be, okay?"

Sam echoes him--it's always a good idea to say the "call us, no, really" shit more than once--and they get the heck outta Dodge as quickly and quietly as they can, leave Christiane and Alex to their grief.

"So," Dean says, putting the key in the ignition and starting her up. "We've got a freaky little dude who cooks meth. Now that's not something you hear every day."

*

Sam scribbles the whole way back to the motel, muttering and mumbling in that freaktastic way of his where Dean's never sure if he's supposed to answer until he gets the bitchface thrown at him, but by the time they're in the parking lot, they've got a pretty good transcription of everything they heard.

It's a couple more hours 'til dawn and they should probably call it a night, but Dean's got the itch of a hunt under his skin. Sam doesn't look like he's ready to sleep, either, so Dean hauls the whole trunk inside to give everything a good cleaning and sharpening while Sam sits down and starts playing online.

It's the first thing they've done in weeks, except sleep and eat and hang out and watch the freaks on the beach. Dean shouldn't be surprised at how good it feels, because he's known all along that this is in his blood, but for whatever reason, he's feeling this one more than he's done in a long, long time, maybe since before Sammy left.

"You know what I don't get," he says after a while. Sam doesn't look up, but acknowledges him with a hum, so Dean keeps going. "Why'd she marry him? I mean, not that it matters much for what we need to know, but… the guy sets her up, scares her to frickin' death and she walks away from everything she's worked for?"

"I don't know," Sam says. "There are too many days when I just don't get people."

"You said it, bro." Dean flips a knife in his hand, checks the blade for nicks and dings. "Give me a nice predictable haunting any day." Sam laughs but he's nodding his head, too. "So, what've we got, genius boy?"

"Not a whole hell of a lot," Sam mutters. "Your standard demon tends to leave a trail, and I'm not finding anything there."

"Local legends? Anybody have a kid die tragically and go nuts?"

"Not that I'm seeing," Sam says. "And Christiane was in different places when it appeared to her, so it's probably not tied to any particular location."

"Haunted object? Curse on Christiane? Hell, curse on Steven?"

"Oh, shit," Sam says, suddenly, straightening up and staring at the screen. "I think I found the trail."

"What?" Dean lays the knife down and leans over to read where Sam's pointing. "Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me," he says, but Sam's just sitting there, shaking his head, and swear to God, some days their life is just _weird_.

*

"Tell me again how I got to be the one to have to explain this?" Dean's told a lot of people a lot of crazy things, but this one might actually be the all-time winner.

"You still suck at Rock, Paper, Scissors," Sam answers, getting out of the car.

"Bite me," Dean mutters, smacking Sam as he cuts across the grass in front of Alex's house. The door opens before they go more than two steps and even from here, Dean can see the mixture of hope and suspicion in Alex's eyes.

"Your message said you found something?" he says, coming out to meet them.

"We did, and, man, I know you want to know, but I really only want to have to explain this once, so can we wait until we're with your sister?"

Alex looks at them for a long time before he turns back to close and lock the door. "I don't like this," he says, low and fierce. "I don't like _any_ of this, but I swear to you, if you're out to hurt her or rip her off, Steven's fucking goons will be lucky to find enough of your bodies to spit on."

Dean holds up his hands. "I get it, man; but seriously, as crazy as all this sounds, we're not running a con here."

"Fine," Alex says. "But I'm driving. With all the security Steven's got around that place, we'll be lucky to get in as it is."

Sam shrugs and Dean tosses him the keys so they can load up a duffel with anything they might need, and, yeah, Dean thinks. This is going to be just fucking _peachy_.

*

All things considered, stuff could have gone down a whole lot worse than Sam having to pull Alex off of Dean when he finishes explaining. At least the guy hadn't come at him with a gun or a knife, and Sam had him hauled up by the scruff of his neck before he landed more than a scuffling punch on Dean's jaw.

"I told you," Alex's yelling as Sam manhandles him across the room. "I fucking told you if you were messing with her, I'd--"

"Alex!" Christiane snaps, and he shuts up at the naked fury in her face. Not that Dean blames him at all, not when she turns to Dean and he's the one taking the heat. "Do you really expect me to believe that?" she spits out.

"That's really up to you," Dean says, flat and even. "My brother and I, we believed _you_, and if you really thought there was going to be some neat, normal explanation for what you told us, well, hey, that's not my problem."

She keeps glaring at him, but she hasn't called for any of the twenty guys Dean counted loitering inconspicuously around the house and grounds as Alex had driven up from the gate. "Trust me," he says, letting his voice soften a little. "This is pretty weird, even for us, but old legends and stories… a lot of the time, there's truth in them."

"If it doesn't work, we'll leave, but honestly, Christiane, I think this is it." Sam's got Alex up against the wall, but his voice sounds like he's kicked back in front of his laptop, no exertion at all, and Dean takes a second to be happy about that. "But we need to get started _now_ so we have enough time to get everything right. This is the third day, and I think that's the time limit on when we can do anything."

Christiane turns away from them, turns toward the bed, rumpled and messy, and Dean sees the edge of a blanket knitted in soft blues and greens under a pillow.

"The lawyers are already talking plea bargains," she says, in that not-exactly-calm voice. "Steven can't even look at me. There's really not anything left to lose, is there?"

"Okay," Dean says, not exactly answering her question. There's calm and then there's death wish--he's not exactly sure where Christiane's standing on that line and they don't really have time to figure it out, but he doesn't think agreeing with her is going to help in either case. "You're on, Sammy."

*

Alex is definitely not happy about anything; Dean thinks they'd be better off with him out of the picture, but then, there'd be no way he'd be leaving Sam to go through something like this alone, so he understands. Sorta. Enough that he can grit his teeth and ignore the muttering. Mostly.

"C'mon, Sam," Dean says in an undertone after the trip down to retrieve the extra duffel out of Alex's trunk. "One quick pop on the back of his head and bam, into the closet he goes. He gets a nap, and we get a little peace."

"Dean," Sam sighs, and Dean grins at him.

"Dude, we lived in apartments that were smaller than that closet; it's not like he'd be _uncomfortable_ or anything."

Sam stops drawing the devil's trap long enough to roll his eyes at Dean, but he makes it a quick one, mostly for show. Shifting the furniture around to get the space they need took longer than they'd thought. Dean appreciates the workmanship in the damn tables and all, but mahogany is heavier than shit.

"All right," Sam says, sitting back on his heels and stretching out the cramps in his hand. "What do you think?"

Dean eyes the familiar pattern Sam's etched into the floor. It's been a couple of months since he and Sam have seen any action--at least, the demon kind--and he'd like the odds stacked as high as they can get them.

"Looks good," he says, and starts laying out the candles and shit they're going to need to do the summoning. "Sorry about the floor," he adds, as Christiane runs her fingers over the scratches.

"I think that's the least of our worries," she says, and yeah, Dean agrees, but civilians can get hung up on the stupidest shit sometimes, so Dean occasionally likes to throw out an apology when keeping them safe involves trashing their house. Missouri would be, well, not proud, but she might not smack him with that damn wooden spoon. "This really works?"

"Oh, yeah," Sam says, and Dean can see the echo of Bobby's place in his eyes. "If the summoning works, I guarantee this will hold it."

"Okay," Dean says, checking his watch. "We've got four minutes to show time, so let's get ready." He flips open Dad's lighter and starts working on the candles.

Sam steps inside the trap, paging through the journal to find the ritual they'd decided would be the best bet. Dean would have liked to have had a couple of choices, but when had they ever known enough to really feel certain? It's old, that's about all Dad had noted; pre-Latin, pre-Christian maybe, and that's the main reason they're going for it. Hell, sometimes they don't even have that much to work with.

Christiane steps up next to Sam, no hesitation at all, but her hands are shaking and she's about ready to bite through her lip. Sam leans down and says something, too soft for Dean to hear, but she nods and at least she doesn't look like she's going to throw up.

Dean looks at Alex thoughtfully, weighing the up-side of having a second shooter against all the really stupid shit that could happen. "Here," he says, pulling Sam's piece out of where he'd tucked it in the back of his jeans. "Never hurts to have a Plan B."

Alex nods once, taking the gun from Dean and handling it like he knows what he's doing, so at least he won't be shooting himself in the foot. Probably.

"Silver bullets," Dean says when he checks the magazine. "Don't know if it'll help, but if this doesn't go the way Sam thinks it will, aim for the heart." Alex nods again. "And don't shoot my brother," Dean adds, smiling, friendly-like, only not really.

Dean's watch beeps with the thirty-second warning and Sam gets ready with the knife. Dean counts down the final ten, tension twisting in his gut, and then they're there. The sun outside the glassed-in patio doors drops below the water and the knife Sam's holding flashes in the candlelight as he makes two quick cuts, one on his palm and one on Christiane's.

She doesn't flinch, just lays her hand down in Sam's, blood to blood, and keeps her eyes on his. Dean counts slow and steady, like he knows Sam is, waiting for their blood to mingle so that Sam can speak for her. He's just hit 'ten' when Sam kicks things off.

Dean's memorized the whole thing, too, because you never can be too careful; he shifts his grip on the gun and gets ready as Sam gets close to the end but even so, he's caught a little off guard when it happens, bang-bang-bang, Sam's voice calling the final word, the flare of light, and a thick, rough voice growling, low and threatening.

Of course, he's really fucking off-guard when the bedroom door--the one Dean knows goddamned good and well he locked--bangs open and a dude who can only be the alleged drug lord husband comes stalking in.

Dean's moving before he thinks about it, gun tucked back into his jeans and the rest of him in that zone of pure reaction that his dad had spent twenty years drilling into his head and body, so that it's nothing more than a reflex now, when it counts. He gets his shoulder down and into the guy's gut, knocking him sideways, and kicks the door shut as they go by, fighting hard to get the cell phone out of the way before something really stupid happens with the goddamned army surrounding this place..

He dodges an elbow to the throat and a knee that slams into his thigh, but then the guy goes absolutely still under him and Dean hears it, too: the unhappy hiccupping cry of a baby.

"--did _not_ make this deal with you," Christiane's saying, almost shouting, and above and beyond the guy who Dean's sure would just as soon shoot him as look at him, Dean's not happy with how on edge she sounds. Yeah, that's the part that Dean especially doesn't like: that Christiane has to speak for herself once the summoning went through. "I never called you and I _never_ said you could have my child."

"You cried and you cried, such a sad little girl you were," the demon says, shaking its head. "I came and I helped and you said nothing then. You took what I offered and now you spit on me."

The kid's in a sling across the demon's back; judging from the excellent pair of lungs he's exercising, Dean's pretty sure he's okay. Sam's steady on his feet, backing slowly away from the demon, bringing Christiane with him, their hands still joined, so Dean turns his attention back to Daddy Dearest, hissing, "Chill, man," as the muscles against him start getting ready to move. "Don't make me break anything."

"No," says Christiane, her voice steadying, back on track with what they rehearsed, what Sam strung together from a dozen different sources. "I will honor my obligation to you. Name your price, but you have no hold on my blood."

"I have my price," the demon sneers, laughing as the candles flicker wildly, but Dean sees Sam's quick flash of a smile as it steps squarely inside the devil's trap.

"Now," Dean whispers. "Now, now, _now_," and holds his breath, because this is the part Sam couldn't find anything but the fairy tale to go on and he's not sure he believes it either.

Right on cue, Christiane says, clear and strong, "Then I name you Rumpelstiltskin and I bid you return to hell."

There's a half-second when nothing happens and Dean's brain kicks in, working out the angle he's going to have to get to take the demon down without hitting the kid, but then it's like somebody dropped a flash grenade, green-white light arcing out from inside the trap, painful in its intensity, and after another second, there's a howling shriek that goes on and on and _on_, rage and fury boring straight into flesh and bone until Dean's not sure he's not howling with it and then, just as suddenly, it's gone.

The baby's still crying, but when Dean can see past the spots in his vision, Christiane's sitting on the floor, holding him and rocking him, calling to him softly. Sammy's on his knees behind her and everything else is gone.

"All clear?" Dean calls, and when Sam gives him the thumbs up, he rolls off Steven and lets the guy go get his family.

*

The knock comes right as Sam finally gets the last of the forty-three books he's bought since they got here shoved into his duffel. Christiane was right, Dean thinks as he opens the door. The three dudes staring at him are definitely not the kind of men you say no to. Sam steps up behind him, one big hand warm and heavy and tense on Dean's shoulder, but he follows along without saying anything.

It's right at dawn so nobody's out and about, which Dean is sure is no accident. He's ready to kick himself for not insisting they clear out as soon as they left that compound the night before.

"Cliché much?" Sam mutters as they walk up to the car, parked but still running at the end of the parking lot. The stooges kind of glare, but that's what you get with a stretch Town Car, complete with tinted windows and a driver wearing a uniform and shades, Dean thinks.

The back window rolls down and there's good old Steven, all cleaned up nice and respectable in a suit that probably cost more than the Impala would bring at auction.

"Howdy," Dean says, which is probably not the smartest way to start a conversation with a guy who could likely make Dean and everyone he knows disappear before lunchtime, but hell, he's tired and his throat's bruised from Steven's elbow and he's not really in the mood to be diplomatic.

"Gentlemen," Steven answers. "Things were a bit… disorganized last night, and I don't believe I ever thanked you."

"Just doing our job," Dean says. Sam elbows him in the ribs, so he adds, "You're welcome."

"Quite an interesting job."

"Family business. You know how that goes," Dean mutters.

"Yes," Steven says. "Actually, I do." He holds out his hand and someone unseen inside the car puts an envelope in it. "I like to pay my debts, but I don't know that there's a gesture adequate for giving me back my family." He passes the envelope out the window, wordlessly insisting that Dean take it.

"Glad we were here," Sam says.

"Yes," Steven says, rather drily. "Your vacation timing was excellent." He hesitates for a second, then waves the security toward a second, waiting car. "I married Christiane to keep her safe; word of her… talents couldn't help but be passed around, but no one would be foolish enough to threaten my wife."

"Well, that's the thing about demons like that," Dean says. "Once they get in a routine, they're stupider than shit."

"Apparently so," Steven says, and the window rolls up.

Dean gives a friendly wave to Larry, Moe and Curly and steps back to let the cars go by. Sam takes the envelope, because he really is a nosy bitch, and starts making strangled, choking sounds as soon as he eyeballs the stuff inside.

"Dude," Dean says, pushing him back toward the room. "Do I need to do the Heimlich on you?"

Sam lets Dean steer him across the parking lot, muttering things about _numbered accounts_ and _Caymans_ and _blood money_, but the way Dean looks at it, if Sammy's not complaining about something, Dean's world just isn't right. Whatever's got him all torqued up, it's probably nothing that a gallon of coffee and some bacon won't cure and if it is, well, it's a hell of a long drive up A1A to Miami and Dean needs _something_ to entertain him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to [](http://without-me.livejournal.com/profile)[**without_me**](http://without-me.livejournal.com/) for beta on the fly. All remaining goof-ups are definitely mine.


End file.
